Various systems and methods of teaching pre-keyboarding and keyboarding to children are known in the prior art. To date, no such system or method has developed an effective, easy-to-teach and easy-to-learn keyboarding teaching system (KTS) or keyboarding teaching methodology (KTM) that is fun, intuitive, and that simplifies how the foundational skills of pre-keyboarding and keyboarding are imparted to children. In particular, the approach of virtually every instructional curriculum for touch typing or keyboarding in the prior art whose KTM visually partitions the keyboard's rectilinear layout of keys into a plurality of key groupings uniformly do so by partitioning the keyboard's layout of keys into a set of columns, not rows.
For an example of column-based KTMs and KTSs in the prior art, see FIGS. 54-56. Each figure shows an exemplary column-based KTM or KTS that used a visual indicator such as color to visual chunk the spatial organization of the QWERTY layout into a multi-column plurality of keys. For example, FIG. 54 shows a QWERTY layout with multiple columns, including a red column 1 that includes the 1, Q, A, and Z keys, a yellow column 2 that includes the 3, E, D, and C keys, a green column 3 that includes the 4, 5, R, T, F, G, V, and B keys, and a purple column 4 that includes the 8, I, and L keys.
Further, the column-based KTMs and KTSs in the prior art do not emphasize the teaching of pre-keyboarding skills prior to keyboarding skills to provide the technology foundation skills necessary for students to succeed. This pedagogical sequence in keyboarding curricula, of providing pre-keyboarding instruction prior to keyboarding instruction, is paramount to effective developmental learning.
Although the KTMs and KTSs in the prior art do teach the spatial organization of the layout of keys on a keyboard, they do so by displaying the entire keyboard layout as a fixed, non-modifiable, non-adaptable object for the entire duration of an activity or curriculum, irrespective of developmental considerations in visual perception processing that may correlate with a student's age or grade level. In this regard, these KTMs and KTSs do not provide meaningful instructional logic that simplifies the visual and structural complexity of the keyboard layout, by for example re-representing the layout as a modifiable, adaptable object and applying organizational laws and principles of Gestalt psychology to inform how the keyboard layout renders in an activity or curriculum.
The spatio-functional layout of a keyboard is a rectangular matrix of spatially organized, interactive, pressable and releasable rectilinear keys, capable of interactively communicating with a computing device. The commercialization of touch-sensitive screen technologies in the 21st century has created a relatively novel keyboard layout in the form of a non-physical virtual keyboard, an alternative to the traditional physical keyboard. A physical keyboard is generally connected by a physical cable, a wireless communication technology, or built in to the hardware of a personal desktop computer or laptop. Alternatively, a virtual keyboard is displayed on a computer screen and is generated by a software program that runs on a personal desktop computer, a laptop, or a touch-sensitive screen device such as an iPad® or tablet. Generally, in the context of touch-sensitive screen devices, the virtual keyboard may be provided by the operating system of the device or may alternatively be provided by a software program that suppresses the operating system's virtual keyboard. On a touch-sensitive device, the virtual keyboard can functionally replace the physical keyboard, enabling the user to press an area on the touch-sensitive screen that corresponds to a virtual key generated by the software, thereby functionally emulating the operability of a physical key on a physical keyboard. Generally, physical and virtual keyboards share the spatio-functional layout of QWERTY key configuration, and perform the same function of enabling a user to connect to and interactively communicate with a computing device by entering data.
The functional and spatial organization of keys and symbols on today's most dominant keyboard layout—the QWERTY keyboard layout—is derived from a 19th century mechanical typewriter design, originally invented by Charles Latham Sholes in the 1872 and patented in U.S. Pat. No. 207,559. Sholes' QWERTY keyboard layout is a grid-like spatial organization of rectilinear keys displaying symbols on a substantially rectangular-shaped typewriter interface. The layout inherits its descriptor “QWERTY” from the horizontally- and left-aligned juxtaposition of the Q, W, E, R, T, and Y keys on the keyboard layout's first alphabetic row of keys. In the 21st century, Sholes' QWERTY keyboard layout may be implemented in either a physical keyboard or a virtual keyboard. At the time of its invention, the QWERTY typewriter layout provided a revolutionary user interface design solution to the then pervasive mechanical problem of typewriter jamming caused by the spatial proximity of the mechanical metal keys and hammers of commonly typed symbols in English-medium written production in pre-QWERTY typewriter layouts. In pre-QWERTY keyboard layouts, commonly typed symbols in typewriter designs were set on spatially proximate keys. As the typing proficiency of typists increased as the market penetration of typewriting technology spread, so too did the frequency of mechanical jamming of the typewriter's keys and hammers during typing due to their spatially proximity in the mechanical design. Sholes redesigned the layout of symbols displayed on keys to reduce the frequency of jamming by reconfiguring the relational position of symbols and keys on the user interface. Sholes' modified design retained the physical spatial organization of mechanical keys and hammers in the typewriter but reconfigured the symbol-key association. This re-design created spatial distance between commonly typed symbols which also created spatial distance within the typewriter's mechanical design between the corresponding mechanical keys and hammers that corresponded with those commonly typed symbols. Sholes' QWERTY layout resolved the 19th century problem of mechanical typewriter jamming, but by distancing commonly typed symbols, the design also slowed down the typing speed of typists. Since its invention in the 19th century, Sholes' QWERTY keyboard layout has endured into today's digital and de facto post-typewriter age, evident by the adoption of the QWERTY layout in non-mechanical electronic physical and virtual keyboards of modern personal computing devices. Today, the QWERTY keyboard layout predominates, and is learned and used by hundreds of millions of keyboarders. The QWERTY keyboard layout has remained dominant despite numerous attempts since the 1870s to replace Sholes' QWERTY layout with a new, spatio-functional layout that re-configures symbol-key association within the keyboard's rectangular shape. The most notable of such attempts was the DVORAK simplified keyboard layout invented by Dr. August Dvorak in the 1930s, patented in U.S. Pat. No. 2,040,248 and which was based on “the frequency of usage of letters in the English language.”
Since the 19th century, Sholes' QWERTY layout has inexorably become a fundamental design assumption of keyboard interfaces of all personal computing devices. The permeating reach of technology, the Internet, and personal computing devices in the everyday human affairs of modern society's digital era approaches omnipresence. By consequence, the need to teach, learn, and use Sholes' QWERTY layout which dominates keyboard designs of personal computing devices has also gradually matured into a foundational skill that students must acquire in primary education. In the educational settings from public school classrooms to private homes, the increasingly central role of technology in instruction continues to inform how educators teach and children learn. The learning needs of children require educators to identify fun, effective pedagogic and methodological approaches to meaningfully impart the foundational skills of pre-keyboarding and keyboarding. In this regard, the challenge to develop a KTS or KTM that makes pre-keyboarding skills and keyboarding skills easy-to-learn and easy-to-teach has been enduring and remains inadequately met by the prior art.
The primary objective of all KTMs and KTSs is to make the development of QWERTY keyboarding form and skills easy-to-teach and easy-to-learn while optimizing the keyboarder's fluency, accuracy, and speed. Eventually, if the KTM is effective, the keyboarder keyboards with fluency, accuracy, and speed, maintaining proper QWERTY keyboarding form from muscle memory. The keyboarder's gaze and attention during keyboarding engages with the computer screen vertically above the keyboard rather than being preoccupied with spatially determining the relational position of symbols and keys on the keyboard beneath it and the three-dimensional finger movements required to press those keys. While the neuro-motor process of symbol location and finger movement may be distinct at first, through practice and instruction over the curriculum of a KTM or KTS, these two processes merged into one.
A keyboarder has proper QWERTY keyboarding form when the keyboarder places the fingers of their left and right hands on the Home Row, the keyboarder's gaze is fixed on the computer screen above the physical keyboard, and the keyboarder iteratively uses one finger of one hand to press one key at one time to render one symbol on the computer screen. With practice, the keyboarder learns to press keys with the most proximate finger vis-à-vis the Home Row hand and finger positions. As the keyboarder presses keys, generally, the keyboarder's Home Row hand positions are stationary while the keyboarder's individual fingers alternate between a stationary position and dynamic movements within the essential keystroke spectrum in order to press and release keys iteratively, ad infinitum, until the keyboard is done keyboarding. Additionally, the keyboarder has good posture and the keyboarder's forearms are not parallel, but rather splayed outward.
The normative, fixed nature of QWERTY keyboard geometry and hand anatomy produces a predetermined spectrum of three-dimensional hand/finger movements. Accordingly, since the spectrum of hand/finger movement is fixed, all KTMs and KTSs teach four common cognitive and motoric elements that are foundational keyboarding skills: (a) unilateral hand and finger skills (b) Home Row Hand and Finger Positions; (c) Relational Position of Symbol Location in the Symbol-Key Association Matrix (SKAM) (d) Home Row Positioning-Based Keystroke Spectrum of Essential Finger Movements. KTMs and KTSs generally teach these four skills but may diverge in their approach to do so.
FIG. 3 displays a full QWERTY layout. The set of keys in a QWERTY keyboard layout maybe categorized into five key groupings: (1) Alphabetic Keys (2) Numeric Keys (3) the Space Bar (4) Punctuation Keys (5) Action Keys. The Alphabetic Keys include twenty-six keys each of which display one of the following array of symbols: {A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z}. The Numeric Keys include ten keys, each of which display one of the following array of symbols: {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}. The Punctuation Keys include five keys, each of which display one of the following array of symbols: {period/more than, comma/less than, semicolon/colon, forward slash/question mark, 1/exclamation point}. The Action Keys include six keys, each of which display one of the following array of symbols: {enter/return, backspace, left shift, right shift, left tab}.
The essential keystroke spectrum of Home Row positioning-based finger movements that develop proper finger-key association habits of keyboarders comprises forty-six unique keystrokes: twenty-six keystrokes for Alphabetic Keys {A-Z}; ten keystrokes for Numeric Keys {0-9}; one key stroke for the Space Bar; four keystrokes for Punctuation Keys {period/greater than, semicolon/colon, comma/less than, forward slash/question mark, exclamation point (which shares the keystroke of the 1 key)}; five keystrokes for Action Keys {enter/return, backspace, left shift, right shift, left tab}.
Within this forty-six stroke essential keystroke spectrum for Home Row positioning-based finger movements, left hand finger-key association consists of the following finger-key associations in the Alphabetic Key grouping: the pinky finger presses the Q key on the Top Row, the A key on the Home Row, and the Z key on the Bottom Row; the ring finger presses the W key on the Top Row, the S key on the Home Row, and the X key on the Bottom Row; the middle finger presses the E key on the Top Row, the D key on the Home Row, and the C key on the Bottom Row; the index finger presses the R and T keys on the Top Row, the F and G keys on the Home Row, and the V and B keys on the Bottom Row.
Right hand finger-key association consists of the following finger-key associations in the Alphabetic Key grouping: the index finger presses the Y and U keys on the Top Row, the H and J keys on the Home Row, and the N and M keys on the Bottom Row.
Left hand finger-key association consists of the following finger-key associations in the Numeric Key grouping: the pinky finger presses the 1 key, the ring finger presses the 2 key, the middle finger presses the 3 key, the index finger presses the 4 and 5 keys.
Right hand finger-key association consists of the following finger-key associations in the Numeric Key grouping: the pointer finger presses the 6 and 7 keys, the middle finger presses the 8 key, the ring finger presses the 9 key, and the pinky finger presses the 0 key. In the Action Key grouping, since the backspace key and enter/return keys are spatially located on the right hand side of the QWERTY keyboard layout, the pinky finger presses these keys; since the tab key and shift key may be located on either the left or right hand sides of the QWERTY keyboard layout, the pinky finger of either the left or right hand may press these keys.
Right hand finger-key association consists of the following finger-key associations in the Punctuation Key grouping: the ring finger presses the period/more than key, the middle finger presses the comma/less than key, the pinky finger presses the semicolon/colon key, the pinky finger presses the forward slash/question mark key.
Left hand finger-key association consists of the following finger-key associations in the Punctuation Key grouping: the pinky finger presses the 1/exclamation point key. For the space bar, the thumb of either the left or right hand presses this key.
Children find keyboarding challenging is that learning how to keyboard requires a child to re-conceptualize their working understanding and prior knowledge of the array of symbols in the alphabet spatially. Prior to learning the QWERTY keyboard layout, as a generally matter, a child's only exposure to memorizing a set of numerical or alphabetical symbols is within the framework of sequential, non-spatial, one-dimensional ordering, numerical in the case of numbers and alphabetic in the case of letters. This framework to conceptualize and memorize a multi-symbol array—like numbers (0 to 9) or the alphabet (A to Z)—does not require a child to learn spatial relational relationships between those symbols. Whether taught by a row-based or column-based KTM or KTS, the QWERTY keyboard layout, a multidimensional spatial configuration of relationally positioned keys displaying symbols requires this learning. The teaching and learning of the spatial relational position of symbol location or finger movements to reach those symbols in rectangular shaped grid, like a physical or virtual keyboard, is new and difficult for a child. Learning the spatial organization of symbols on the QWERTY keyboard requires that child to translate their understanding of a sequential, non-spatial, one-dimensionally ordered array of symbols to a spatial, multidimensional ordering of symbols with relational positions.
The Home Row contains the keys displaying the symbols A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, and semicolon/colon and is vertically centered in the spatial organization of the QWERTY keyboard, with two rows above it (the Number Row, Top Row) and two beneath it (the Bottom Row, Spacebar Row). For example, the Home Row is the green row in FIG. 3. A student's hands are in the Home Row Position when the pinky, ring, middle, and pointer finger of the left hand are respectively positioned on the “A,” “S,” “D,” and “F” keys and the pointer, middle, ring, and pinky fingers of the right hand are respectively positioned on the “J,” “K,” “L,” and “:/;” keys. Once the left and right hands are in the Home Row Position, this hand positioning structures the keystroke spectrum of essential finger movements of the left and right hand. Although virtually all KTMs and KTSs teach this singular keystroke spectrum of physiologically identical Home Row-positioning based finger movements, their approach to teaching the relational position of symbol location on the QWERTY layout's visual perceptual field and their approach to provide clues to cue those finger movements from the Home Row Position differ, diverge, and vary in effectiveness and simplicity.
The Symbol-Key Association Matrix (SKAM) represents the structure and spatial organization of symbol-key pairings in the QWERTY keyboard layout. See FIG. 23 for a visual illustration of the SKAM. Every KTM and KTS developed for the QWERTY keyboard layout teaches the SKAM in different ways. The SKAM includes five vertically-aligned rows: the Number Row, the Top Row, the Home Row, the Bottom Row, the Space Bar Row; the Number Row is above the Top Row; the Top Row is above the Home Row; the Home Row is above the Bottom Row; the Bottom Row is above the Space Bar Row. From left to right, the Number Row contains fourteen keys which respectively display the following fourteen symbols: {tilda/left quote, 1/!, 3/#, 4/$, 5/%, 6/A, 7/&, 8/*, 9/(, 0/), minus/underscore, equal/plus, backspace}. From left to right, the Top Row contains fourteen keys which respectively display the following fourteen symbols: {tab, Q, W, E, R, T, Y, U, I, O, P, open bracket/open brace, close bracket/close brace, backslash/bar}. From left to right, the Home Row contains thirteen keys which respectively display the following thirteen symbols: {caps lock, A, S, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, semicolon/colon, right quote mark/double quote mark, enter/return}. From left to right, the Bottom Row contains twelve keys which respectively display the following twelve symbols: {left shift, Z, X, C, V, B, N, M, comma/less than, period/more than, forward slash/question mark, right shift}. The Space Bar Row contains one key that displays no symbol. For each key in the Number Row, Top Row, Home Row, and Bottom Row, if the key is pressed after either the left shift key or right shift key in the Bottom Row has been pressed, then the glyph to the right of the “/” is rendered on the computer screen; alternatively, if the key is pressed with both the left shift key and right shift key in the released state, the glyph to the left of the “/” is rendered on the computer screen.
Today, many traditional systems and teaching methods known in the prior art fail to effectively teach foundational pre-keyboarding skills that develop: fine motor skill development for the finger and hand positioning and movements required for keyboarding; unilateral hand and finger skills which teach students to learn to use their hands and fingers separately; or the structural and spatial organization of the QWERTY keyboard. Prior commercially available teaching methods for keyboarding, mainly column-based approaches, can be overwhelming to students of any age, let alone children. Column-based approaches use a finger/color association scheme in their approach to use color to partition the keyboard into groupings of keys, assigning a finger to a color and then associating that finger with a set of keys rendered in that color on the keyboard. This builds finger-key association and finds expression in color-coded columns. However, such column-based approaches make keyboarding hard-to-teach and hard-to-learn because they manufacture complexity by creating a multiplicity of color-coded key groupings, and cluttering the spatial organization of the QWERTY keyboard by requiring children to learn up to nine or ten color-coded key groupings of columns. Although the plurality of columns is numerically less than the plurality of keys, the number of columns is still too great for any keyboarder to reasonable remember. More, column-based approaches may also replicate color-to-column associations for the fingers of the left and right hand, so that one color maps to at least two columns on the QWERTY keyboard, a first column of which is assigned to one finger of one hand, and a second column of which is assigned to the same finger of the other hand. This use of color-to-column mapping schemes can generate right-left confusion in keyboarding at early developmental learning stages where the color-to-column association may still be competing with the alphabetic character-to-key association in the child's mind. As such, in column-based keyboarding teaching methodologies, since each column contains at least three keys positioned vertically in the QWERTY keyboard layout, one color may map to two columns in the finger/color association scheme, which gives a child only a ⅙ chance of typing the right key by relying on color as a clue to correct keyboarding.